Back to the 80’s to Find True Love
Rhonda – Chapter Sixteen
Finding Paige’s Soulmate Begins
“Hey Danny, know where I can find Mr. tall, dark, and handsome who may or may not be Paige’s soulmate?” Danny slides out from under Brody’s pickup looking up Rhonda’s legs and finally landing on her raised right eyebrow and pursed lips. “Hey, my eyes and mouth are up here! Making a “v” with her right index and middle fingers she points them at her face. “Now Rhonda, simmer down now, I can’t help it if your damn long legs were right at my eye level? I was making my way up to your eyes missy.”
Danny pops up off the mechanic’s creeper pad and reaches for a shop towel, “Why do either of you want to know where Cody might be? As far as I’m concerned, he’s not worth the dirt on the bottom of my shoes.” Rhonda expelling a loud breath, “Well, he isn’t who we thought he was.” Danny chuckles, “I know exactly who he is, a lying, self-serving asshole who wanted to take advantage of a backwoods girl on his way through our small town.”
I hop up on the counter to allow my legs to dangle. “I’m telling you, we had Cody pegged all wrong. Paige and I drove up to Kansas City yesterday.” Confused, Danny continues to wipe the grease and soot from his hands. “Why in Gods green earth would you two drive up to Kansas City unless it was to confront – wait, please tell me you two idiots didn’t go up there to find the soon to be Mrs. Cody Dalton.”
“Well this idiot is glad we did because we discovered something that is a complete game changer for Paige.” Danny stops wiping his hands and throws down the towel on the counter. “What exactly do you mean by a game changer? Either he’s getting married or he’s not, which is it?” I hop down from the counter and walk over to stand in front of Danny. Looking into his eyes I whisper, “Jessica is dead Danny, Cody isn’t getting married because there is no one for him to marry.”
“Woah, seriously? How long, how?” Danny reaches up and wipes away a tear that’s formed and spilled over down my cheek. I feel the sadness again from Midge’s story and how devastated Cody must have been. “As best we can tell it happened about 7 months ago during a robbery. Jessica was in the wrong place at the wrong time. Her neighbor Midge heard us knocking on her door and told us the story.”
Hidden Romance Revealed
I reach up and place my hand over Danny’s and lean my cheek into his hand. “You know hearing what happened makes a person really examine their life and how we are not guaranteed tomorrow. Danny I’m tired of sneaking around behind Paige’s back with this thing we have between us. I don’t want to hide anymore. I think it’s time to let Paige know so we can be together out in the open.”
Danny places his other hand on my face and brings me in close giving me the softest sweetest kiss we’ve ever shared. Slipping his hand to the back of my head, the kiss intensifies with a hunger neither one of us can extinguish. I pull Danny in even closer wrapping my arms around his middle wanting to feel his whole body against mine.
From a distance the station bell dings as someone drives in for gas, breaking the spell of the kiss. Danny reluctantly pulls away giving me one more little kiss on my nose and forehead. “Well I reckon I better go take care of whoever that is.” He runs his hand through my hair and grabs me by the face and gives me one more quick kiss on the lips. “Can you stick around for a bit longer?” Rhonda just shakes her head yes still caught in the moment.
“Hey Danny, you got my truck done yet?” “Brody, you know I’ve only had your dang truck for a couple of days. I told you it’d be at least a week to get all the work done. Besides, it’s not like you don’t have some wheels in the meantime. Hey, I’m glad you came by though, I was going to give you a call about something else.” Brody grins, “Listen I’m not fixing you up with any more women you horndog! Last time didn’t end well for either of us.”
“That’s not even close to what I was going to ask you, douche bag. I was wondering if you’ve seen that new guy Cody Dalton around your bar lately.” Brody squints and gives Danny an assessing look. “I’ve seen him around, come to think of it, he’s been coming in every Saturday and nearly goes through a bottle of Jamison. What’s he done to Paige now?”
“Cody ain’t done nothin’ to Paige. I just need to talk to him and wasn’t sure where to find him. Seems there was a bit of a misunderstanding about his availability status. I just want to hear it from the horse’s mouth.” Brody raises an eyebrow and nods his head in understanding. “Well if you want to catch him, I suppose he’ll be in the bar tonight if he repeats what he’s done for the last couple of weeks.” Brody turns to leave, “Well I suppose I’ll see you later then brother.” “I’m warning you Danny, don’t you come there to start a fight tonight. I’d hate to ban my best paying customer.” Danny gives Brody a salute, “No Sir.” “Yeah, yeah” Brody gives Danny a two-finger salute back and drives off.
⩫
Back to the 80’s to Find True Love
Paige, Danny, and I pull up to Brody’s Bar, it’s about 8pm and the place is just coming to life. The 80’s cover band he’s hired for the night are just beginning their first set. Beer is flowing freely from the taps and seated at the end of the bar is none other that Mr. tall, dark, and handsome. Nodding my head toward him, Danny catches my signal and heads over to make first contact. “Hey hon, why don’t we go find a table while Danny gets us a couple of draws at the bar.” Paige hasn’t seen Cody yet and moves toward the booth on the far side. “You know I only came with you tonight because you guilted me, right? I would have been happy as a clam to sit at my house and drink my box wine but nooooo, you just had to come out to Brody’s tonight.” Rhonda gives Paige a gentle shove toward the booth that’s in a perfect spot to watch the band. “Alright, that’s enough out of you, missy. You’re gonna have fun tonight if it kills you!”
On our way to the booth, we run into Becky and Darla on the dance floor. “Hey, why don’t you guys go on over to the booth and I’ll go help Danny bring back the beer.“ Making my way across the now crowded floor, I dance across the sea of locals to finally reach Danny. From the way his shirt has pulled tight across his back, I can tell he’s all tensed up. He’s talking to Cody and it doesn’t sound like it’s going well.
“We just want to talk. I know there were some things said that weren’t true and I wanted to give you a chance to set the record straight.” Cody throws back another shot of Jamison and slams the empty shot glass onto the bar, “Fuck you and the horse you rode into town on. I don’t have to set anything straight because I didn’t do anything wrong.”
“Cody, Paige found out what happened to Jessica yesterday. We’re all in shock and dumbfounded why you didn’t explain yourself a couple of weeks ago. She’s been a complete mess since she confronted you at the garage and torn up over your dumbass. That is until she found out that there isn’t going to be a wedding. She was convinced that you were using her as your last bachelor hoorah before getting hitched. When she found Jessica’s journal, what was she supposed to think?”
Back to Reality with a Shot of Jamison
Cody downed another shot of Jamison, slammed the glass on the bar and raises his eyes up in persecution. “What was she supposed to think? She can go fuck herself, that’s what I think.” Slurring his words more pronounced now, “Paige had no right to snoop around reading stuff that doesn’t belong to her. Jessica is mine alone and no one gets to look at her words but me!” Cody’s slapping his chest with his palms getting increasingly agitated. “You motherfuckers don’t know shit about losing the love of your life. At least I thought she was the love of my life until I met Paige. Paige is nothing like Jessica and yet she’s everything. I felt a connection with Paige that I never felt with Jessica.”
Tears are rolling down his cheeks and he’s starting to shake. He pushes away from the bar and looses his balance falling against Danny. “Woah there Cowboy, I think you’ve had enough for tonight.” Danny steadies Cody back on his feet. Why don’t you let me take you to where you’re staying before you blackout.” Danny looks up and Paige is standing there, eyes wide as saucers, mouth in a large “o”, “Danny, if you get him to my house, I’ll look after him. It would seem we have a lengthy list of things to discuss.”
Cody unsteady on his feet, is trying to push away from Danny. Making eye contact with Paige, he loses all his fight. Paige walks over and pulls his arm over her shoulders so she can walk him out to her car. “Just lean on me, we’re going back to my house so we can hash this crazy thing we have out.”
I look at Paige and Danny and know that this could turn out incredibly good or extremely bad. “Hey Paige, are you sure you want to be alone with Cody? Danny and I could stay overnight.” I give Paige a reassuring look, but she just shakes her head no.
Time to Sort Things Out
“Guys, I can take care of myself and Cody is too drunk to do much of anything but listen. Just help me get him in my house and I’ll handle the rest.” Danny gets on the other side of Cody and pulls his arm over his shoulder as well. Together they get him in to Danny’s truck and up the stairs into her bedroom.
“Paige are you sure you want him up here? Wouldn’t it be better to put him on the couch downstairs?” Paige shews Danny out of the bedroom and closes the door behind her. “Listen, he needs to sleep off whatever damage he did at Brody’s and then we have some things to sort out. I’ll be fine, trust me.”
Danny and Paige come back down the stairs. I jump off the counter and reach for Paige, I give her a bear hug and whisper into her ear, “You call me if you need anything, ok? All right, I guess we’ll leave you to it.”
Tears are beginning to run down her face. “Girl don’t you start crying, you know what will happen, I’ll start and then Danny will start, and we’ll all be a blubbering mess. Danny reaches and pulls us both into a group hug. “You both just better stop it right now or I’ll be forced to bring out my feminine side!” We all three started laughing at each other and straighten up.
“Danny, I won’t be in tomorrow needless to say. This may take some time to work through.” “Listen, you take all the time you need, but I’ll be checking up on you tomorrow whether you like it or not.” Paige closes the door behind us, and we begin walking out to Danny’s truck.
Grabbing my hand, he pulls me out to the truck like a man with a purpose. Quickly opening the passenger door, he shoves me in. “Hey, what’s with all the pushing.” Danny gives me his best smoldering look and quickly wiggles his eyebrows up and down. “Rhonda, I’m taking you to my place, and we are not going to talk.”
Lord have mercy.
